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BrightCove.TV Shuts Down; Company to Follow?

I've actually had a love-hate relationship with Brightcove for quite a while. On the one hand, they have the absolute most complex and cool back-end for their video management system that allows for customization of how your videos display. I loved using that. On the other hand, their advertising deals completely sucked canal water (when they were even turned on).

One of the moves I've never quite understood, given their focus on complexity and comprehensiveness, was their decision to open up a YouTube clone. Sure, the marginal costs aren't that much greater, if you've got your data hosted in the right way. It doesn't, though, create the culture of quality content that BrightCove seemed to want to encourage with their complex producer tools.

Those of us with active accounts at BrightCove got an email in September saying that they were moving what is essentially the "unseemly" (read: YouTube-ish) content. Today, though, we get an email saying that it will all be going away, having been up for exactly one month and one week.

As other bloggers have noted, the company has raised $80 million in funding and finally seems to have found its focus. I disagree with that assessment. To make sudden moves and major course corrections as often as BrightCove does indicates a lack of expertise and direction at the top. That's not to say there isn't something to be said for being nimble as a company, but when you've got $80 million sunk into a venture, nimble and experimentation should fly out the window. You should know what your doing at that point.

That's the sort of analysis one can easily make just looking at a timeline of the company. When you analyze them after having worked with the company before, though, it looks to be even more shaky. I don't know the inner-working of deals they have with Marvel.com and Time Magazine Online and how much money BrightCove makes from them, for instance, but I do know the standard offer they give to independent producers. I'm pretty sure I'm NDAed from giving the exact amount, but I can tell you that the only way to make money with it is if you're using a $12 webcam from WalMart and you have more viewers than the Star Wars kid.

BrightCove is in trouble. They need to beef up their advertising sales, they need to address the management issues, and they need to decide what their company wants to do when it grows up. Otherwise, this company isn't going to live past puberty.

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